[162] Deloume op. cit. pp. 320 ff.; Guadet in Daremberg-Saglio Dict. des Antiq. s.v. Basilicae.
[163] Large transport ships could themselves come to Rome if their build was suited to river navigation. In 167 B.C. Aemilius Paulus astonished the city with the size of a ship (once belonging to the Macedonian King) on which he arrived (Liv. xlv. 35). On the whole question of this foreign trade see Voigt in Iwan-Müller's Handbuch iv. 2, pp. 373-378.
[164] Voigt op. cit. p. 377 n. 99.
[165] Compare Cunningham Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects vol. i. p. 165, "It is only under very special conditions, including the existence of a strong government to exercise a constant control, that free play for the formation of associations of capitalists bent on securing profit, is anything but a public danger. The landed interest in England has hitherto been strong enough to bring legislative control to bear on the moneyed men from time to time…. The problem of leaving sufficient liberty for the formation of capital and for enterprise in the use of it, without allowing it licence to exhaust the national resources, has not been solved."
[166] Plut. Numa 17. On the history of these gilds see Waltzing Corporations professionelles chez les Remains pp. 61-78.
[167] The praetor was Rutilius (Ulpian in Dig. 38. 2. 1. 1), perhaps P. Rutilius Rufus, the consul of 105 B.C. (Mommsen Staatsr. in. p. 433). See the last chapter of this volume. For the principle on which such operae were exacted from freedmen see Mommsen l.c.
[168] Inliberales ac sordidi quaestus (Cic. de Off. i. 42. 150).
[169] Gell. vii. (vi.) 9; Liv. ix. 46; Mommsen Staatsr. i. p. 497.
[170] Cf. Cic. de Off. i. 42. 151 Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid adquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius.
[171] See de Boor Fasti Censorii. A disturbing element in this enumeration is the uncertainty of numerals in ancient manuscripts. But the fact of the progressive decline is beyond all question. No accidental errors of transcription could have produced this result in the text of Livy's epitome.